Kiss and Tell (59 page)

Just for a moment, caught unguarded, she gave Tash a look that made her step back in alarm. It was poisonous. But then she smiled her sweet, child-like smile and Tash guessed she must have imagined it. It had been a long day for all of them.

‘Thanks for lending a hand Beccy – we really appreciate it.’ She reached out to squeeze her stepsister’s arm.

‘Pleasure.’ Beccy shrugged, looking uncomfortable. ‘I’ll leave you two to it now.’ She practically ran to the stables flat.

‘Was it something I said?’ Tash laughed, turning to Hugo.

‘She probably knows what I’m about to do.’ His eyes glinted in the dark.

‘And that is?’

Lifting his hand to cup the back of her head, his mouth met hers in the longest and deepest kiss they’d shared in months, tongues delving, lips tasting, his body hard against hers. It was a very sexy kiss; Tash would have happily dragged him into a stable had there been one free.

‘Talk about having it away in a manger,’ she gasped as she came up for air.

Together they walked around the rest of the stables in the main yard, checking everything was settled and the horses warm, with forage and water for the night.

‘Are you really going hunting tomorrow?’ she asked, trying not to sound too hurt.

‘Yes, but I’ll only stay for the meet. I’ll be back before lunch. I might even bag some birds.’

Tash curled an arm around his waist and stretched up to kiss him on the neck, breathing in his familiar, but still intoxicating, smell.

But, just as he joined in the kiss and it began to hot up again, she remembered the missing gun.

Hugo was furious, all the more so because she had left it so late to tell him.

‘You should have called the police!’ he raged, storming back to the house.

‘It was Christmas Eve.’

‘So? If there’s not a simple explanation to this I’m going to call them now and it’s Christmas fucking Day.’

Tash had a sudden vision of Hugo gathering all their house guests in the drawing room like a butch Miss Marple until the culprit was exposed.

But when they got to the gun room the Webley was back in its place, locked in the stand, as though it had always been there.

‘It was definitely gone …’ Tash was baffled.

But it was obvious from Hugo’s withering expression that he didn’t believe the gun had ever been missing.

Chapter 40

On Boxing Day morning, yawning widely and still wearing her pyjamas, Tash finished plaiting horses while Hugo pulled down the ramp of the horsebox, dressed in his scarlet Berks and Hants jacket.

‘You’re a life-saver,’ he said as he leant over the stable door. He’d never been able to plait quickly, and he was running late as it was. Both his horse, Duck Soup, and old Mickey on whom he had been planning to mount his niece Lotty were off lame, and so he’d been forced to find alternatives.

Tash wasn’t sure it was wise to take out two of Lough’s boggle-eyed New Zealand thoroughbreds without permission, but Hugo argued that they were fit and clipped and needed the exercise, to which she could only agree. It was also so lovely to have him in a genuinely good mood that she was loath to break it by arguing.

‘You’ve done the most amazing job this week,’ he told her now, admiring her bottom as she stretched up to plait Rangitoto’s forelock to his bridle. ‘I’m really proud of you.’

Tash felt her face flush happily. ‘I hope the shoot goes okay.’ She had a nasty feeling that, having bitten off more than she could chew over Christmas, today had another mammoth portion of chaos lying in wait.

‘I’ll get back as soon as I can,’ he reassured her as she carried her plaiting stool out of the stable.

‘Promise?’ She glanced up quickly, about to turn back to fetch the horse. But something about the sight of him in hunting gear made her pause, loving the old fashioned Christmas card quality, the whiteness of his breeches against the red wool, the shininess of the mahogany-topped boots.

He caught hold of her sleeve and pulled her up against him. ‘I promise.’

Wheeling her way beneath the stable yard arch with a barrow
loaded with two bales of shavings, Beccy was just in time to witness a very steamy clinch. Hugo, looking so cruelly handsome in all his regalia, was kissing Tash very thoroughly, his hand inside her thick fleece top and his white thigh creeping between her legs as he pinned her against the wall.

A jealous stitch winding her, Beccy quietly set down the barrow and turned away, deciding to abandon mucking out and claim one of the cooked breakfasts her mother was dishing out from the Haydown Aga.

She met Lotty coming the other way, prim and proper in black hunting coat and white silk stock, her dark hair confined in a net.

‘I’d hang back a while,’ Beccy told her crossly. ‘Hugo’s squiring the wife.’

Agog, Lotty rushed on in the hope of seeing rakish Uncle Hugo doing something terribly depraved, but when she rounded the corner Tash was leading Toto out to be loaded beside his stablemate in the yard’s tatty old hunting box, a far cry from the state-of-the-art luxury coach they used for competitions.

‘We’ll come straight back after the first draw.’ Hugo kissed her before clambering in beside his excited niece and driving away, leaving Tash to hurry back to the house to get dressed, checking en route that her game pies were still safely locked in the boot of the Shogun, where she was sure the dogs couldn’t possibly get to them.

The Czechs, thank goodness, were back at work again that morning, loyally wearing the stiff new moleskin trousers that Tash had bought them for Christmas. As soon as breakfast was cleared away Veruschka took charge of the children. Not trusting Vasilly to handle shotguns, Tash told him to look after the dogs and commandeered Beccy to help her bag cartridges.

Still sulking from witnessing such a hot kiss between the Beauchamps earlier, Beccy distractedly muddled up different gauges.

‘Won’t Lough be angry that Hugo’s taken two of his horses hunting?’ she asked.

Tash rolled her eyes. ‘He’s hardly here to ask, is he?’

‘You’ve heard nothing from him then?’

‘Not even a Christmas card.’

‘How rude,’ Beccy muttered into a big box of cartridges, turning pink.

*

When Sylva arrived, using Haydown’s front carriage sweep for dramatic effect, Tash joined the rest of her family gaping from the drawing room windows and let out a yelp of horror as Sylva’s huge entourage emerged from the three cars. ‘Do you think they’ll all want lunch?’

But nobody was listening, as they watched Sylva Frost stepping from the back of her Porsche Cayenne in all her glory.

Dressed in Ralph Lauren plus-twos and knee-high Stella McCartney boots, with a low cut, wasp-waisted tweed jacket from which a lot of lacy bra was frothing, and a leather shooting waistcoat that was more rough trade than rough shoot, she looked as though she was about to pose for a
Playboy
spread, draped over a shooting-brake bonnet undoing a button at a time.

Tash was too relieved by the sight of all the super-efficient Slovakian nannies to care that the rest of her family were gaping at Sylva in horror, or that Rodney and his crew were pulling a camera and sound equipment from the boot of a Freelander.

‘Daarlink!’ Sylva enveloped Tash in a reassuringly tight hug of silicone and bone. ‘I have been so looking forward to this! Is everybody here? Am I terribly late?’

‘Dillon’s lot aren’t here yet,’ she reassured her as they walked to the house.

‘How rude,’ Sylva huffed, her much-planned entrance wasted.

A little girl raced between them as they reached the steps up to Haydown’s rather pretentious portico (a legacy dating back to Hugo’s great-grandfather who fantasised himself Andrea Palladio), bounding up to them to pirouette beneath the grand entrance and chattering away in Slovakian.

‘My … niece, Zuzi,’ Sylva laughed, calling out to the girl in Slovak.

‘She’s beautiful!’ Tash exclaimed as Zuzi spun to a halt in third ballet position and held out her hand to shake her hostess’s.

‘
Dobrýden!
’ she chirruped, tilting her head. With her huge eyes, rosebud lips, heart-shaped face and thick blonde curls she was a miniature of her aunt.

‘She refuses to speak English,’ Sylva complained as Tash crouched down to talk to her, but before she could address her the girl was whipped away by a dark haired woman muttering oaths.

‘Hana, my half sister,’ Sylva explained almost apologetically as the
woman carried the little girl away, casting Tash a furious look over her shoulder. ‘She doesn’t speak English either. I send her for lessons, but she says it is a horrible language. Sophia, my
darlink
!’ She spotted Tash’s sister just inside the house and rushed forwards to greet her like an old friend. Sophia, who had been bitching throughout Christmas that Tash was selling out, looked mortified as Sylva air-kissed her extravagantly. ‘So lovely to see you again. And this gorgeous man must be a new husband?’

‘This is Daddy,’ Sophia quacked.

James looked thrilled.

Within twenty minutes, Sylva had them all charmed, demonstrating that the unique appeal which kept her at the top of the tabloid popularity stakes despite her gaudiness was her ability to disarm and appeal to all sexes and ages. When she pulled out the big guns and put on the Sylva show, she was irresistible.

The shotguns, meanwhile, lay idle on the rack in the back of Alf Vanner’s pick-up as they waited for Dillon Rafferty.

Tash started to fret that her shooting lunch, already scheduled for three o’clock, wouldn’t happen until nightfall. The Bitches of Eastwick, having seen the guns come out, had for once snapped out of their usual stupor and were going beserk with excitement, barking loudly and wagging tails so vigorously that decorations were volleying from the tree with pings and smashes.

She dashed upstairs to check on Amery, who was having his mid-morning nap.

‘Vasilly’s put the dogs in the back of the car to keep them quiet,’ Ben told her when she came back down.

Tash froze. ‘Which car?’

‘The big red bugger, I think.’

‘My game pies!’ she wailed, sprinting outside.

Dillon was running over an hour late. The argument with Nell that had started on the phone first thing that morning was still blazing as they belted off the A34 and on through the downs lanes to Maccombe.

Furious that she had been excluded from the family Christmas at West Oddfield with his children, Fawn and her family, Nell had decided that Dillon should devote his Boxing Day exclusively to her. She loathed shooting, big lunches and boorish horsy families like
the Beauchamps. She wanted rock ’n’ roll and wild adventure.

But Dillon was adamant that they would go, making her feel as though she came a paltry second to his social calendar. He’d urged her to bring Giselle – ‘There’ll be lots of toddlers and children there’ – but she’d arranged for her mother to look after her, thinking that at least they could stop off somewhere romantic on the way home for supper and sex, little realising that, when he collected her that morning, the back seat would be occupied by Pom and Berry, looking as blank-faced and beautiful as their mother. Wrapped up in their dual-screen DVD player, they had headphones clamped over their little ears, which at least enabled her to give Dillon a piece of her mind without fear of being overheard.

Her only consolation was that he hadn’t brought along his ex-wife and in-laws, who were by now on their way to visit relatives in Scotland.

Even turning into the Beauchamps’ driveway between two spectacular brick and flint gateposts with lions rampant, her jaw kept moving as she complained that he might as well hire a girlfriend by the hour for all that he made her feel special. But Dillon had long since tuned out.

He was surprised by how much he was looking forward to seeing the Beauchamps again and being enveloped in their enviably hearty, straightforward life. He only hoped that Nell would appreciate it too.

What he saw as they finally drove into Maccombe didn’t disappoint. The weather was perfect – a misty frost burning off to reveal blue sky with just a few dark clouds over the downs on the horizon hinting at the snow to come later. A scene reminiscent of a Merchant Ivory production greeted their arrival, with tweedy types and Labradors striding around various off-roaders and trailers in front of that exquisite strawberry pink house that lifted his spirits as surely as the sight of a beautiful woman. He was looking forward to the day ahead.

Tash rushed forwards to greet him, looking far slimmer than he remembered her, and those odd eyes sparkling warmly.

‘What beautiful children! Hello!’ She kissed them all. ‘We have smalls inside, and games galore. And you must be Nell.’ Tash gathered her arm beneath Nell’s to lead them inside. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t manage to find out whether you shoot or not. Do you want a gun today?’

‘Only if Dillon behaves really badly,’ she replied glumly.

As Dillon took his little blonde girls to meet the host of other children that seemed to be milling about like something out of
The Sound of Music
, Nell grumpily fingered the hard little heart at her throat and wondered whether she should have brought Gigi after all, but decided it would have just stressed her out. Even though she knew that things were bad with Dillon, when he had produced a little Tiffany box she had somehow still hoped that it might be a ring. Instead it was a gold heart pendant; very pretty but quite probably chosen by his PA. She couldn’t hide her disappointment.

She supposed she should be grateful that he hadn’t given her another horse. It made her edgy to know that beautiful and mad Cœur d’Or was here at Haydown, recovering from his injuries and facing an uncertain future.

She was even more disconsolate about the day ahead when she realised that neither darling Rory nor sexy Hugo were in evidence. If it hadn’t been for the off-putting presence of Pom and Berry she would have insisted on joining the children in the house with an army of jolly nannies who were setting up quaintly old-fashioned activities like apple-bobbing, musical bumps and mask-making. Finding herself standing beside a dark-haired woman in a velvet jogging suit that was so unfashionable it had to be catwalk cutting-edge, and taking her to be another of Tash’s high-calibre sisters, she pulled a sympathetic face. ‘Not coming out with us?’